(Newser)
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The Zodiac killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area is still living in northern California, says a new book by a former state police officer. The Zodiac is blamed for at least five slayings beginning in 1968. No one was arrested for the murders, and police stopped hunting for the killer 2004. Former Highway Patrol Officer Lyndon Lafferty is convinced the Zodiac is a 91-year-old alcoholic living in Solano County, who Lafferty refers to using a pseudonym because of safety concerns. His case is strong, indicates the San Francisco Chronicle, which received two dozen taunting letters from the Zodiac during his bloody spree. Lafferty told the Chronicle in an earlier interview that he discovered the suspect's name spelled out in the cyphers that marked the Zodiac's letters to the newspapers.

Lafferty helped investigate the case on the job after the murders, and says in his book, The Zodiac Killer Cover Up, that he developed solid leads linked to his suspect. The information was squelched by officials, however, including by a judge having an affair with the suspect's wife, says the former cop. Lafferty wrote the book with help from six other investigators, some of whom worked the case while it was unfolding. “As God is my witness, my partners and I have always tried to share our material and our case with the proper authorities, but in the past 40 years the latter have ignored and stymied and stonewalled us again and again,” Lafferty writes. Police will only say that the case remains unsolved.